Every Thursday, I will be posting a photo from my travels and a spotlight on the location. Today’s Spotlight Thursday is from Neuschwanstein Castle in Hohenschwangau, Germany. I looked at going by myself but found that it was cheaper to take the tour down there. I decided to take the Neuschwanstein Castle Small Group Day Tour from Munich. I meet my tour guide at the train station in Munich. The guide named David handled all the transportation and tickets to Neuschwanstein.
On the train ride to Fussen, David told us the story of Neuschwanstein and the mad King Ludwig II. Ludwig is known as the castle builder. He built several castles in Bavaria. Ludwig focused his energies and money on building his castles. Neuschwanstein was the grandest of the castles that construction was started. Eventually, Ludwig was bankrupted and deposited by his Uncle. From there, the stories gets a little murky on what happened but Ludwig was under house arrest and while on a walk with his doctor. Ludwig died/was murders/ committed suicide. The doctor was also dead. The official cause of death was drowning and suicide, but he had no water in his lungs. His castles bankrupted Ludwig, but today, they bring millions of tourist to Germany every year.
From Fussen, we took a bus to Hohenschwangau where we stopped for lunch. David informed us that the tour of Neuschwanstein only takes 30 minutes and tours the 15 completed rooms. There were originally over 200 planned, but Ludwig died/ran out of money before it was completed. The castle had some cutting edge technology such as running hot water, telephone, and flushing toilets. The rooms are lavishly decorated in motifs from Robert Wagner’s operas.
The tour was great, but I wish the tour wasn’t such an assembly line. Each tour contains about 50 people and you bounce from room to room without time to really appreciate the craftsmanship. I wish the trails hadn’t been icy so we could have hiked to the bridge overlooking the castle.
Disclosure Notice: I selected and paid for my tour without any input from Viator. This article contains an affiliate link. If you book this tour or any Viator, please use my link to support my travels.
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Check out my other photos from Spotlight Thursday.